Tag: gaming
50 Cent challenges anyone to beat him at his own game – literally
The making of Fiddy’s computer game hasn’t been without difficulty, but after two years, it’s finally due for a release in January. Still, the delay means one thing – the man himself has had a chance to get good at it:
“I actually had the opportunity to play it, and I’m pretty good at it. If anybody out there wants to create a challenge or wants to bet some money online, we could play the game right now.”
It’ll have 19 new, exclusive, tracks, as well as a bunch of Fiddy’s older stuff, including the big hits. Oh, and bizarrely, it’s apparently inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2006 film “Blood Diamond”. Still, I bet I could kick his arse at it, without too much trouble. You’re on, Fiddy.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (via MTV.com)
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Logitech G18 spotted – a new gaming keyboard?
Despite not owning one personally, I’m a big fan of the Logitech G15 keyboards. The LCD display and macro buttons really rule the roost when it comes to gaming keyboards. Info has leaked out this morning, however, about a successor, which seems to be called the G18.
From the image above, we can tell a few things. It’s got double the number of macro keys on the left hand side (6 to 12), some sort of D-pad, and nicest of all, a full-colour LCD screen, replacing the G15’s single-colour LCD.
When we spoke to Logitech this morning, they had no comment, so this is probably a few months away from being announced, but we’ll have the full details, and a full review, as soon as it’s released.
(via Engadget China)
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Logitech G13 "Advanced Gameboard" is a gamer's dream add-on
I really want to try this. It’s a “Gameboard” (i.e. mini-keyboard for gamers) that’s designed to complement an existing keyboard and mouse setup, rather than replace it, like other gaming keyboards.
It’s got 25 programmable keys, as well as a programmable analogue stick and three different ‘game modes’. Logitech claims this gives you “87 ways to control their game”, though that seems like they’ve just picked a random figure out of the air. 25 x 3, plus 1, then bump it up a bit more to make it sound good?
Features-wise, it’s got backlit keys, it’s got onboard memory, so you can store your configs and port them to other PCs, it’s got a 160 x 42 LCD panel, for displaying stats and other random info, and it comes pre-configured for WoW, CoD4, and “many other popular games”. It costs £70 and appears to be available now.
FLASH GAME CHALLENGE – Downhill Bowling
This is brilliant. Why has no-one come up with the concept of downhill bowling before? Fling a bowling ball down a hill and see how many strikes you can get on the pins scattered about the hillside on the way down. Plus there’s bombs!
Install the Unity Web Player (It’s not virus, spyware, etc), and then restart your browser and give it a quick go. I had difficulties running it in Chrome, but after swapping to Firefox, I notched up a whopping score of 7180 on level one. Beat that, and leave your score in the comments for someone else to top.
Downhill Bowling (via RPS)
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Asus launches quad-core gaming laptop – claims 'fastest in the UK'
Asus has just announced the UK’s first quad-core gaming laptop, claiming it’s the fastest gaming laptop that money can buy. It’s got an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor running at 2.53GHz, 4GB of RAM, a Geforce 9700M graphics card, and a pair of 250GB hard drives in RAID-0.
The beast packs a 17″ screen, with 1920×1200 resolution, and a smaller ‘VFD’ display too, which can show email notifications and framerates while in-game. It’s got a 2 megapixel webcam, 802.11n wireless, HDMI and eSATA ports, 2.1 speakers and a subwoofer, and ‘programmable chassis lighting’…
Gaming Addiction Centre Chief: "Compulsive Gaming Is Not Addiction"
Keith Bakker is the founder of one of the most popular gaming addiction rehab centres in the world – the Smith & Jones Centre in Holland. They were the first facility in the world to admit patients for addiction to games, and they’ve been in the headlines lately following a few cases of people playing a little too much of the new WoW expansion.
Last year, Keith said “I believe gaming is currently the greatest threat to our society”, which is a hell of a statement. However, he’s recently made somewhat of a U-turn in his opinions. He now says that 90% of the kids he sees are actually addicts – they just need better social care, which is exactly what I said the other day.
Art as Games: Counterstrike map based on Van Gogh painting
We did gaming as art, here’s art as games. An enterprising young chap has recreated Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting (pictured) in the form of a Counterstrike map. It’s stunningly beautiful, and a reminder that gamers, even though we like killing things, appreciate beauty, too.
Check out a video tour of the map over the jump and marvel at amount of Van Gogh references crammed into this creation. Rock, Paper, Shotgun asks ‘What long-dead artistic visionary would you base a game on?’. I’d go for Edward Hopper. His use of light rivals anything that a modern 3D game engine could cook up.
Teufel unveils Concept E Magnum Power Edition 5.1 Speaker Set
Here’s a new home cinema speaker setup from Teufel. It’s designed for computers and consoles, though it takes phono inputs, so you’ll need some conversion cables. It consists of a subwoofer, centre speaker, and four satellites, and can pump out a rather loud 450 watts.
There are two colour options – midnight black and matt silver – and it comes with an infrered remote for volume control, but the best feature of this setup is that it’s only £160 (€189). That’s bargaintastic for a full on 5.1 surround system. It won’t be the highest-fi system you’ve ever heard, but for pumping out Halo, Mario Kart, World of Warcraft, or a DVD in full surround, I couldn’t think of a finer device.
Teufel
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Max out your Flash gaming habit with Flash Game Maximizer
Are you tired of squinting at a tiny screen for your lunchtime Desktop Tower Defence habit? Well, squint no longer with the Flash Game Maximizer Firefox add-on. Although some games have a built-in ‘fullscreen’ option, many don’t, and this add-on lets you pump any which don’t up to full 1920×1280, or whatever massive resolution you’re running in.
The add-on’s still ‘experimental’, so you’ll need to log in to Firefox’s add-ons site to download it. When installed, you get a little box in the bottom right hand corner. When it detects flash, it’ll turn yellow, and you can then click it to go fullscreen. Unfortunately it will reset any game currently in progress, so be careful of that. Still, it’s a nice way of avoiding those annoying ads all around the game, and increasing the sense of immersion.
Flash Game Maximizer (via Cnet)
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National Geographic to start making games
In yet another sign that games are rapidly taking over from movies as the #1 entertainment medium, veteran nature documentary producer National Geographic has decided that it fancies a shot at making the next “Hunting Unlimited 2009”.
Curiously, though, the company has decided that it’s only going to develop for a very limited set of platforms – naming Mac and iPhone specifically. Is there an Apple-National Geographic deal that I don’t know about?
The first title, “Herod’s Lost Tomb”, is already available on Mac, iPhone and Windows. It’s about the biblical King Herod, who reportedly wasn’t too fond of baby boys. More titles are on the way, including “Sudoku Traveler: China”, “National Geographic: Africa”, and the intriguingly titled “From the Bottom Up”.
National Geographic Channel (via Macworld)
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